1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electric device having a housing made of solidified polymeric material in which electric components situated inside or outside the housing are connected via electric lines, as well as to a method for manufacturing it.
2. Description of Related Art
In various application areas of electric devices, the housing is a molded plastic part which serves to protect or support electric functional units. Electric devices, in particular those used in motor vehicles, must be able to resists difficult ambient conditions such as dirt and dust burden, high temperature variations, humidity, in particular condensing humidity and, as a consequence thereof, corrosion. To increase the reliability of electronic circuits such as printed circuit boards, it is known to encapsulate the electronic components with plastic. It is also known to protect flexible conductor traces against mechanical damage or against oxidation by back-injecting them with a thermoplastic material.
A printed circuit board in which a flexible carrier is backed-injected with a thermoplastic material is described in European Patent EP 0 485 838. A molded plastic part having a protected conductor trace is known from German Patent DE OS 198 12 880. The conductor trace is embedded between a plastic film and a covering foil. The molded plastic part can be used for shielding electric devices.
It is an object of the invention to provide an electric device having a plastic housing in such a manner that electric components inside or outside the housing can be connected in a technically simple manner and that the production cost can be reduced.
These and other objects of the invention are achieved by an electric device comprising a housing having a wall (2) made of solidified polymeric material and at least one electric component (5) which is situated inside the housing and is connected via at least one electric line (4) to at least one electric component which is situated outside or inside the housing, wherein the line (4) is configured to be flexible and is at least partially embedded in the wall (2) of the housing during the molding and solidification of the housing.